June 20, 2025 • 22 mins
Part Two:
Charlie Fink is a veteran of the extended reality (XR) and tech media industries, known for his Forbes column, the AI/XR Podcast, having attended AWE (Augmented World Expo) nine times, written three books, and taught as a professor at Chapman University. His work now blends XR, AI, and storytelling, with a focus on what’s new and breaking in technology.
Key Takeaways:
- Shift to AI: Charlie’s focus has moved from XR to AI, which he believes represents a value creation opportunity on par with the internet and mobile revolutions.
- Wearables and the Future: He sees unlimited potential in wearables, envisioning a future where humans merge more closely with machines, although he remains skeptical about the need for displays in smart glasses.
- Unintended Consequences: While acknowledging the risks and unintended consequences of new technologies, Charlie is pragmatic about the industry’s trajectory, noting that developers and users will inevitably adopt new tools regardless of warnings.
- Teaching and Community: He is passionate about teaching students to use AI effectively and remains deeply engaged with the tech community, both as a consultant and as a speaker.
- Storytelling and Hollywood: Charlie is working on animated and AI-driven content in Hollywood, emphasizing the importance of balancing creative and business decisions to achieve transcendent experiences.
- Podcasting and Media: His podcast, recently rebranded to “The AI/XR Podcast,” has grown significantly, with 50,000 downloads per month, demonstrating the value of longevity and adaptability in media.
Charlie reflects on the evolution of technology, the importance of timing, and the inevitability of most ideas failing despite the brilliance of their creators. He continues to explore new opportunities in tech, media, and consulting, driven by a desire to remain relevant and make a positive impact.
Subscribe for more inspiring stories of innovation.
About Charlie Fink ---
Charlie Fink writes a weekly technology column for Forbes covering AI and XR, and co-hosts its companion show, The AI/XR Podcast. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books Charlie Fink’s Metaverse (2017) and Convergence: How the World Will Be Painted With Data (2019).
Fink teaches emerging media at Chapman University in Orange, CA, and at Arizona State University’s graduate program in Narrative and Emerging Media in Los Angeles. He is also CEO of Sprocketdyne, an AI animation studio he co-founded with film director Rob Minkoff.
Fink's forty-year career at the intersection of storytelling and technology began at Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he famously conceived the idea for The Lion King and subsequently became the studio’s youngest-ever vice president of creative affairs.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nathan C Bowser (00:00):
Hey everybody, this is Nathan.
Welcome to the Glow Up.
We've got a really specialepisode for you this week.
We're talking this week withCharlie Fink, you know him as a
producer of worldwideentertainment properties.
You know him as a podcast host.
You know him as a bestsellingauthor of some of the seminal
(00:22):
books on spatial computing.
He is an adjunct faculty.
He is a columnist.
He is a super fan and a serialinnovative creator whose story I
think you're really going toenjoy.
We're gonna split the episode inhalf so you can hear an amazing
(00:42):
story of Charlie's journey ininnovation and the incredible
projects and view that he's hadon the development of immersive
technologies, storytelling, andthe current new media landscape.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
Now, let's dive in!
Charlie Fink (01:01):
I've been to AWE nine times, so I'm a student of
the medium.
And eventually after writingthree books, I am also a
professor of the medium and itdovetails with my beat.
I study XR all week long.
My focus has shifted to AI as XRhas matured.
Because I'm more interested andI always have been more
(01:22):
interested in my career towhat's breaking and what's new.
AI is unique in so much as Ibelieve it is, I never thought I
would see a value creationopportunity on the scale the
internet again in my life.
I thought that was the bigchange.
The second change, and I missedthis completely, was mobile.
(01:42):
Mobile changed everything.
It changed the internet, itchanged everything.
And now AI.
The idea that we could have athird disruption on this scale
over the course of 30 years tohave lived through it does give
me a unique perspective thatmakes my work, I think, unique.
That said, I love thiscommunity.
(02:03):
It's a relatively smallcommunity.
It is maturing.
It is still growing.
I think the opportunity is,unlimited for wearables.
I just think we are gonna mergemore and more.
As Pattie Maes famously said,"Weare gonna become cyborgs." Maybe
not in the way people think, butthat general thought that we're
(02:24):
gonna get closer and closer toour machines, is a hundred
percent right.
And of course, Pattie'sperspective is: Not so fast.
Right?
Because unintended consequences.
You know, they say, there's aGreek saying, which is"There is
no gift from the gods that comeswithout a curse." You know,
Pattie's perspective is beforewe rush into that, maybe we
should take a beat and considerthe unintended consequences.
(02:48):
And I will tell you right nowthat there is no technology that
man would not rush intoheadfirst regardless of the
consequences, especially whenthe moneymaking opportunity is
clear.
So although Pattie is right, sheis also wrong.
That's what academics have theprivilege of being wrong about.
(03:08):
She's researching unintendedconsequences in the hope it'll
reach somebody in some positionof influence.
But the truth is those peopleare so busy remaking the world
in their image, they don't havetime to hear about unintended
consequences.
You know, the users will justhave to deal with that.
And so that's where we are.
That's what's gonna happen withAI.
(03:30):
Deal with it.
I'm a bit of an iconoclast atChapman they're like,"It's
ruining people's cognitiveability." Maybe?
So is Google Maps.
Deal with it.
So we should be teaching ourstudents how to be great at
using AI.
And a lot of them have theopposite view and I don't blame
them.
And I feel like here in LosAngeles and Hollywood, you know,
(03:50):
there's a lot of resistance toAI and a lot of warning over the
passing of one version of theindustry into another.
The silly thing about Hollywood,of course, is that everybody in
Hollywood thinks Hollywood isthe world.
Nathan C Bowser (04:03):
And
Charlie Fink (04:03):
Hollywood is a relatively small industry
vis-a-vis, all the giant energy,transportation, all these
categories that,
Nathan C Bowser (04:12):
Yep.
Charlie Fink (04:13):
that like Hollywood is like a little
pimple.
Apple could buy all of Hollywoodand it'd be rounding error.
Nathan C Bowser (04:19):
So this is very interesting, Charlie.
This theme of connection,inspiration and these, you know,
community long-termrelationships has really taken
you through some really cooleras of media, of technology.
This very relatable, big techmoment, in the early teens was
(04:43):
just, startups were huge!Everything was growth! Unicorns
was the way! And if you weren'tnew, data-driven and immediately
viral, like just get out of theway.
I heard so many people gotdisillusioned in tech, you know,
with those exact sameexperiences that you had.
Seeing all of these foibles andmissed opportunities as well as
(05:04):
being a part of some really dopeshit, what keeps you coming back
to an industry that is kind ofsmall, too early, that has some
of these challenges.
What is it that like keepsbringing you back into the space
and keeps capturing yourattention?
Charlie Fink (05:20):
I feel like part of my mission is to follow this
space.
You know, part of my destiny isto follow this space.
A lot of my attention hasshifted to AI, as has a lot of
my teaching.
When AI hit at the end of 2022,I was first of all stunned at
how small my thinking about AIhad been.
I was aware of ChatGPT and thatthese developments were going
on, but my exposure to it mademe think it was"meh".
(05:43):
I didn't have enough imaginationto understand what it was gonna
become.
But when OpenAI launched ChatGPTand DALL-E, I started to
understand.
And I actually, said to my wifeat that point,'cause my first
book was called"Charlie Fink'sMetaverse" And it's the only
technology book I've ever heardof that actually was a best
seller.
It was an AR enabled book.
(06:03):
It was the first of those.
And then Zuck started promotingthe metaverse.
He changed the name of hiscompany, and it was great for a
guy who had written a bookcalled"Metaverse." But in the
fall of 2022, I saw that theMetaverse gravy train was
grinding to a halt.
Partly because it had playeditself out.
It's after all that you mean theMetaverse is Roblox?
(06:29):
Now that you mention it, yeah.
I know if Matthew Ball werehere, he has a much more
elaborate and technology basedview of the metaverse and that
is happening in the background,but that's part of the natural
development of thesetechnologies like 5G anyway.
The real reason Nathan, is that,and I've learned this about
myself, and I had this epiphanywhen I was about 60, you'd think
(06:50):
I would've learned about myselfbefore then, which is that I
need to be relevant.
I need to be relevant tosomething.
Typically something, you know,I've succeeded most of my career
working in niches and workingwith technologies very early.
VR has kind of stuck with me, ARas well.
(07:11):
You know, it's been an excitingride.
I don't think our end place wasanything like any of us thought
we were looking at.
My current perspective is thatwearables have a big future.
And glasses are a fantasticplatform for sensors.
And when those sensors areworking with AI, feeding it
contextual data connected toyour phone, which has
(07:34):
geolocation, you have a verypowerful wearable ecosystem.
Almost an operating system intoitself.
As far as displays go theexpensive part of that, right?
So I'm talking about the MetaRay-Bans and what should have
been Apple's glasses.
They killed that effort in favorof the Vision Pro, which will
certainly become a businessschool case study in stupidity.
(07:57):
And of course Meta's, if youhave a very specific use case
like translation, you can seethe argument for it.
But again, it can also be donewith earbuds or just with
regular audio smart glasses.
So I guess I would say whereI've come down to on display is,
first of all, you gotta haveyour phone with you or some
(08:18):
puck.
And you can put a display, thisis a great freaking display.
Most people consume all theircontent on this display.
You're never gonna have adisplay that good on your face.
So since you have to carry thiswith you everywhere, what is the
point of putting the display inthe glasses?
It's hard.
It's expensive.
If I can have all that inframes, or maybe the sensors can
(08:42):
be mounted another way, a lapelpin.
I have no idea.
If I can wear sensors in thatway and have them work with my
phone and AI and to give me, youknow, and it's connected to the
web.
Tell me about restaurants onthis street.
Tell me about the history ofthis cathedral that I'm looking
at.
Oh, I've taken a picture of aforeign language menu.
(09:02):
Please translate it for me.
So all of that can be donewithout displays.
So I am losing my religion ondisplays.
We've been working on it for 10years now.
Google's coming out with one andMeta's adding it, doing a
version of Ray-Bans with it.
And so I, you know, myexperience with Vision Pro is,
nobody at Apple could tell mewhat the applications were other
(09:24):
than what the device did.
Whoa! 3D photography! So theyhad no idea what it was
Nathan C Bowser (09:29):
for.
Productivity!
Charlie Fink (09:31):
It was just a disaster on every level.
Nathan C Bowser (09:33):
The broad spatial computing community
spent decades just obsessedabout degrees and nits and, how
much of a screen, how bright ofa screen, how full-color of a
screen.
And what you're pointing at isthat when you're talking the
only thing that I could think ofthat requires a screen in many
(09:55):
of those instances, is that wehave been trained that
technology is so dumb that smartassistants are not very smart.
We want a screen so that we cansee the interface, so that we
can see with our own eyes andtrust that we know what's going
on.
And that to me is like a userexperience problem.
(10:17):
One of the major differentiatorbetween all of the AR glasses
that are out there and the onething that Apple did to
contribute to the conversationreally was show elegant,
considered user experiences thathelp people get into the
technology in a blink so thatthey can start to ask those next
questions and be like, useful.
(10:39):
And you know, the laggards aresome of the more sort of cutting
edge.
Like you, you put'em on, youdon't know how they work.
You have to fumble your waythrough.
Just love this idea that like ascreen might just be like a
pacifier, you know?
That's holding us back to thisnext layer.
It seems like one of those areaswhere the worry about future
(11:01):
malfeasance lost out, theunintended consequences lost out
to the developers just reallyneed this tool to move this
forward.
Charlie Fink (11:08):
Yeah.
Nathan C Bowser (11:09):
Yeah.
Charlie Fink (11:09):
Let's see.
You know, I'm hoping when thosedevices come out, they'll come
with use cases.
Google I/O is going on thisweek.
They sent me a bunch of videosfinally of what the experience
is like inside of their headset,and it is the same prosaic stuff
we've already seen.
It's translation, it'sdirections.
I don't know about you.
I have a heads-up display in mycar that I never use.
(11:32):
I use the Google navigationsystem.
It's perfectly fine for thatpurpose.
I don't feel like glasses aregonna make that better.
Reading text messages in yourglasses happens to be the
stupidest thing I've ever heard.
People really wanna beinterrupted whenever?! In their
field of view?
Really?
And instead I'm gonna have to goup here to dismiss it.
(11:53):
I would never choose thatfeature.
Meanwhile, the features thatwould be really awesome, like
facial recognition are gonna betotally illegal.
Nathan C Bowser (12:01):
You got, how do you opt in on a street level?
Charlie Fink (12:03):
There may be specialized apps that allow you
to do that at a conference.
Nathan C Bowser (12:07):
AUR+A.
Yeah.
Charlie Fink (12:08):
Something like that.
And then they're useless afterthe conference.
But not enough people are gonnahave the glasses and people
aren't gonna walk around in aconference going like this.
But you know, at AWE many morepeople know me than I know.
And so people start talking tome, the assumption is that I
know them and in many cases theyare familiar to me because we've
all been doing this for 10years.
(12:29):
If I only could put in myglasses who they are, I would be
so happy! What would work forme?
Is the AI whispering in my ear.
"Oh, that's Nathan Bowser."People are gonna have crazy eyes
inside of their glasses.
You're gonna be talking tosomebody in their glasses and
they're gonna be like, lookingdown like this, and you'd be
like,"Hello!"
Nathan C Bowser (12:47):
Like when somebody is multitask, when
they're in a Zoom call on theVision Pro and they're
multitasking, they like turnaway and like they're physically
doing something else.
Charlie Fink (12:56):
Like being on a Zoom call and you see
Nathan C Bowser (12:57):
Yep.
Charlie Fink (12:58):
somebody there going like this, you know
totally what they're doing.
Nathan C Bowser (13:00):
Amazing! Charlie, I'm having so much fun.
You mentioned some things that,you were working on now using AI
in media.
I'm curious, looking forward howare these themes of like deep
tech and storytelling and AIevolving in your work now?
Charlie Fink (13:17):
I'm working on a series of stories about AI in
Hollywood and where I think allof this is gonna go in the next
five to 10 years.
And it has led me, investigatingit and studying it has led me to
working with my friend first onan animated series.
And, then hopefully it'll leadto a movie or a streaming
series.
But if you can keep the cost lowenough, you can make money on
(13:41):
shorts on social media, YouTube,and Reels.
But you have to keep your costreally low, like$500 a minute.
You know, that means that you'regonna have to, choose content
that is native to AI that takesadvantage of AI.
That's why it's an anime show.
Because we all expect a littlejankiness from anime.
And if you make some shortcutsor have to do a scene where all
(14:03):
you've got is mouth shapes foranimation it's okay'cause it's
gonna be on a teeny tiny littlescreen and everybody knows that
anime can be very low budget andchoppy.
We'll see.
It's a really interestingproject.
I love working with Rob Minkoff.
You know, the guy's a geniuscreatively, he's great.
He and I have been friends for35 years, so we have a very deep
(14:24):
basis of trust.
And I completely, a hundredpercent creatively defer to him.
He's so much better than I am.
I'm a guy with opinions, but sois every producer in Hollywood.
The problem with producers is Iwill make the most expeditious
choices in the interest of theproject, and he will make the
best artistic choices to servicethe project.
(14:46):
And so the tension is always,you have to balance those two
things.
But if you go with theproducer's way, you're just
gonna end up with a serviceable,low budget project.
And we don't want it to beserviceable, right?
We want it to be transcendent.
We want you to forget about howit was made and care about who's
in it and what's gonna happen tothem.
If you're worried about how itwas made, you've lost.
Nathan C Bowser (15:06):
Oh my gosh.
Such great creative advice! Ilove this idea of a transcendent
experience.
It leads me to my next questionwhere I talk about goals, right?
The show is The Glow Up, whichis a notable rebirth or a
transformation.
I'm curious, as somebody who hashad many different lives and
careers, in this tech andcommunication space, do you have
(15:28):
goals for the next six monthsthat you're working on?
Charlie Fink (15:31):
It would be great to see the thinking I've been
doing about AI and Hollywoodbecome a book.
No one really reads books, butit's the fact of the book that
matters and it hopefully couldreignite the speaking business I
enjoyed after"The Metaverse" waspublished.
'Cause that was a really goodfour year run.
I'd like to have a little bitmore of that because you know,
(15:51):
you make money flying to Koreaand talking to Samsung or to
Dubai and talking to governmentpeople.
That was the kind of consultingand speaking I was doing.
It was awesome! It paid well andit hurt that business ended for
me.
Fortunately I do have a smallconsulting business, helping
tech companies tell theirstories and sometimes do
strategic planning.
And oftentimes I do it for freebecause I just, I love people.
(16:15):
I love the people in thiscommunity.
It gives me great pleasure andsatisfaction when I see people
who are succeeding.
Because I also see many peoplewho disappear and you know, I
know they were smart people withgreat vision.
But you know, in this cruelworld, so many things have to
align with timing and everythingelse that it's just inevitable
(16:37):
that most ideas fail.
And I've had way more ideas failthan succeed throughout my
career.
In the next six months I'mhoping we can get through this
social media series with Rob,and get it out there and see
people's reactions and hopefullymake enough money so that we can
keep going and use that data tomake it more and more popular.
We have a big social media/moviestar, who we've signed up, and
(17:02):
we'll make a big announcementabout these things probably in
the next four or five weeks.
You have to get all the dealsclosed in a Hollywood way, and
believe it or not, that takeslonger than it's gonna take to
produce the actual content.
So that's why people are like,Hollywood's gonna disappear.
I'm like no! You know, you'regonna need celebrities more than
ever because in a sea ofundifferentiated AI content,
it's hard to know what is a realwork and what is just synthetic
(17:27):
slop.
That'll make your social mediafeed more entertaining and
visual.
But it also will clutter thingsup with special effects you know
we see with Studio Ghibli orpeople folding themselves up
using the Pika app and you know,these things are cute but it
blocks content of deepermeaning.
Having a celebrity is gonna makea big difference.
(17:47):
Also, in general when you'reproducing cinematic AI you have
human fingerprints all over itthat have to be documented,
right?
So that you can protect thework.
We're doing visual developmentoffline.
We're hiring artists to figureout the look and feel of the
film because we want to be ableto protect it, and it's
difficult, it's not impossible,but it's difficult to protect AI
(18:09):
when you don't document what thehumans have done.
That's the state of the artright now.
And also more and more ethicalmodels are hitting the market
and those models are gonna getbetter and better.
So that legal concern probablywill be greatly diminished in
the next year or two.
And you know, I still write thecolumn and do the podcast every
week.
I teach every semester.
So all those things dovetailtogether.
(18:31):
To teach I would have tobasically write the column
anyway and to do the podcast thefirst 15 minutes of the podcast
is news and opinion, which wecouldn't do if I hadn't written
the column the day before.
'Cause that's the script for thepodcast.
And then, you the format is likea Daily Show thing.
So we do the kind of newsroundup/opinion, the three of us
(18:51):
together and then we bring inwhoever the guest is for a 30,
40 minute interview.
And we've been getting greatguests.
We've done 245 shows, I thinkwe've had about 210 different
guests.
So there's some repeaters inthere.
But it's funny, I was justlooking at our stats'cause we're
getting like 50,000 downloads amonth.
(19:12):
So I'm better known at thispoint for the podcast than my
writing on Forbes.
When people come up to me at AWEthey're talking about the
podcast.
When I met people at SXSW andthey're like,"Oh, you're Charlie
Fink! Can you say'Good morningeverybody?'" It's like the
signature line of the podcast.
"Good morning everybody!" AndI've done it 245 times.
(19:33):
And here's advice for yourpodcast.
Longevity really counts withpodcasts.
The first year we were gettinglike 20 people listen to the
podcast.
Right now we see numbers like,oh shit! 35,000 people listen to
that podcast?! You know, it'scrazy! But I think that also is
because we changed the name ofthe podcast from"This Week in
XR" a year ago to"The AI/XRPodcast" And that has made a big
(19:57):
significant difference.
And I do think by the way, theconversation about XR, which is
no longer new, is about AI.
Nathan C Bowser (20:04):
Yeah, but I think it's partly due to my
decade in the space and justfamiliarity having built a
number of prototypes and appsthat I've started to see,
immersive technology, spatialcomputing, more as a content
channel and differentiator,rather than a'market to build
in." I've always talked about,you know, is it MR or VR?
(20:27):
It's just the kind of screenyou're using and now there's a
'goggle-less' category for VRtoo.
Charlie Fink (20:31):
There's Lightfield Labs Labs, which is gonna, you
know, making beings made oflight that are photorealistic.
Chairs that look like you cansit in them, that come out of
the floor.
You know, that are projected outof the bending light against
these panels I guess they'redoing a giant stadium
installation where thescoreboard is gonna float over
the fricking field!
Nathan C Bowser (20:51):
That is the future!
Charlie Fink (20:52):
Bonkers! We ain't seen nothing yet! The next 10
years should bring as manysurprises as the last ten has.
Nathan C Bowser (20:58):
Oh goodness! Charlie Fink you have been so
generous with your time and yourinsights on this, long and
storied career.
I'm really taken by this sort ofpresence that you have as you've
moved through these differenteras of communications
technology and this flexibilitythat you've had to you know,
(21:21):
move into these different rolesand opportunities, and even like
identities as, technology andopportunities have changed.
Hands down you win the award forthe most, like name drops and
just jaw dropping anecdotes.
And also, as somebody who is aadvocate for creators, really,
(21:44):
you know, wants to see thedesigners, the UXers, the
artists, the content makers,have a part, a voice, a place
in, you know, the development ofthis technology, to hear
somebody come from yourbackground, scrape their way
into that opportunity and stillbe, engaged and passionate in it
so many decades later.
Such an inspiring conversation!Thank you so much for joining on
(22:07):
The Glow Up today.
Thanks for having me Nathan!This has been amazing! Can't
wait to hear more.
Hey everybody, this is Nathan.
Welcome to the Glow Up.
We've got a really specialepisode for you this week.
We're talking this week withCharlie Fink, you know him as a
producer of worldwideentertainment properties.
You know him as a podcast host.
You know him as a bestsellingauthor of some of the seminal
(00:22):
books on spatial computing.
He is an adjunct faculty.
He is a columnist.
He is a super fan and a serialinnovative creator whose story I
think you're really going toenjoy.
We're gonna split the episode inhalf so you can hear an amazing
(00:42):
story of Charlie's journey ininnovation and the incredible
projects and view that he's hadon the development of immersive
technologies, storytelling, andthe current new media landscape.
I think you'll really enjoy it.
Now, let's dive in!
Charlie Fink (01:01):
I've been to AWE nine times, so I'm a student of
the medium.
And eventually after writingthree books, I am also a
professor of the medium and itdovetails with my beat.
I study XR all week long.
My focus has shifted to AI as XRhas matured.
Because I'm more interested andI always have been more
(01:22):
interested in my career towhat's breaking and what's new.
AI is unique in so much as Ibelieve it is, I never thought I
would see a value creationopportunity on the scale the
internet again in my life.
I thought that was the bigchange.
The second change, and I missedthis completely, was mobile.
(01:42):
Mobile changed everything.
It changed the internet, itchanged everything.
And now AI.
The idea that we could have athird disruption on this scale
over the course of 30 years tohave lived through it does give
me a unique perspective thatmakes my work, I think, unique.
That said, I love thiscommunity.
(02:03):
It's a relatively smallcommunity.
It is maturing.
It is still growing.
I think the opportunity is,unlimited for wearables.
I just think we are gonna mergemore and more.
As Pattie Maes famously said,"Weare gonna become cyborgs." Maybe
not in the way people think, butthat general thought that we're
(02:24):
gonna get closer and closer toour machines, is a hundred
percent right.
And of course, Pattie'sperspective is: Not so fast.
Right?
Because unintended consequences.
You know, they say, there's aGreek saying, which is"There is
no gift from the gods that comeswithout a curse." You know,
Pattie's perspective is beforewe rush into that, maybe we
should take a beat and considerthe unintended consequences.
(02:48):
And I will tell you right nowthat there is no technology that
man would not rush intoheadfirst regardless of the
consequences, especially whenthe moneymaking opportunity is
clear.
So although Pattie is right, sheis also wrong.
That's what academics have theprivilege of being wrong about.
(03:08):
She's researching unintendedconsequences in the hope it'll
reach somebody in some positionof influence.
But the truth is those peopleare so busy remaking the world
in their image, they don't havetime to hear about unintended
consequences.
You know, the users will justhave to deal with that.
And so that's where we are.
That's what's gonna happen withAI.
(03:30):
Deal with it.
I'm a bit of an iconoclast atChapman they're like,"It's
ruining people's cognitiveability." Maybe?
So is Google Maps.
Deal with it.
So we should be teaching ourstudents how to be great at
using AI.
And a lot of them have theopposite view and I don't blame
them.
And I feel like here in LosAngeles and Hollywood, you know,
(03:50):
there's a lot of resistance toAI and a lot of warning over the
passing of one version of theindustry into another.
The silly thing about Hollywood,of course, is that everybody in
Hollywood thinks Hollywood isthe world.
Nathan C Bowser (04:03):
And
Charlie Fink (04:03):
Hollywood is a relatively small industry
vis-a-vis, all the giant energy,transportation, all these
categories that,
Nathan C Bowser (04:12):
Yep.
Charlie Fink (04:13):
that like Hollywood is like a little
pimple.
Apple could buy all of Hollywoodand it'd be rounding error.
Nathan C Bowser (04:19):
So this is very interesting, Charlie.
This theme of connection,inspiration and these, you know,
community long-termrelationships has really taken
you through some really cooleras of media, of technology.
This very relatable, big techmoment, in the early teens was
(04:43):
just, startups were huge!Everything was growth! Unicorns
was the way! And if you weren'tnew, data-driven and immediately
viral, like just get out of theway.
I heard so many people gotdisillusioned in tech, you know,
with those exact sameexperiences that you had.
Seeing all of these foibles andmissed opportunities as well as
(05:04):
being a part of some really dopeshit, what keeps you coming back
to an industry that is kind ofsmall, too early, that has some
of these challenges.
What is it that like keepsbringing you back into the space
and keeps capturing yourattention?
Charlie Fink (05:20):
I feel like part of my mission is to follow this
space.
You know, part of my destiny isto follow this space.
A lot of my attention hasshifted to AI, as has a lot of
my teaching.
When AI hit at the end of 2022,I was first of all stunned at
how small my thinking about AIhad been.
I was aware of ChatGPT and thatthese developments were going
on, but my exposure to it mademe think it was"meh".
(05:43):
I didn't have enough imaginationto understand what it was gonna
become.
But when OpenAI launched ChatGPTand DALL-E, I started to
understand.
And I actually, said to my wifeat that point,'cause my first
book was called"Charlie Fink'sMetaverse" And it's the only
technology book I've ever heardof that actually was a best
seller.
It was an AR enabled book.
(06:03):
It was the first of those.
And then Zuck started promotingthe metaverse.
He changed the name of hiscompany, and it was great for a
guy who had written a bookcalled"Metaverse." But in the
fall of 2022, I saw that theMetaverse gravy train was
grinding to a halt.
Partly because it had playeditself out.
It's after all that you mean theMetaverse is Roblox?
(06:29):
Now that you mention it, yeah.
I know if Matthew Ball werehere, he has a much more
elaborate and technology basedview of the metaverse and that
is happening in the background,but that's part of the natural
development of thesetechnologies like 5G anyway.
The real reason Nathan, is that,and I've learned this about
myself, and I had this epiphanywhen I was about 60, you'd think
(06:50):
I would've learned about myselfbefore then, which is that I
need to be relevant.
I need to be relevant tosomething.
Typically something, you know,I've succeeded most of my career
working in niches and workingwith technologies very early.
VR has kind of stuck with me, ARas well.
(07:11):
You know, it's been an excitingride.
I don't think our end place wasanything like any of us thought
we were looking at.
My current perspective is thatwearables have a big future.
And glasses are a fantasticplatform for sensors.
And when those sensors areworking with AI, feeding it
contextual data connected toyour phone, which has
(07:34):
geolocation, you have a verypowerful wearable ecosystem.
Almost an operating system intoitself.
As far as displays go theexpensive part of that, right?
So I'm talking about the MetaRay-Bans and what should have
been Apple's glasses.
They killed that effort in favorof the Vision Pro, which will
certainly become a businessschool case study in stupidity.
(07:57):
And of course Meta's, if youhave a very specific use case
like translation, you can seethe argument for it.
But again, it can also be donewith earbuds or just with
regular audio smart glasses.
So I guess I would say whereI've come down to on display is,
first of all, you gotta haveyour phone with you or some
(08:18):
puck.
And you can put a display, thisis a great freaking display.
Most people consume all theircontent on this display.
You're never gonna have adisplay that good on your face.
So since you have to carry thiswith you everywhere, what is the
point of putting the display inthe glasses?
It's hard.
It's expensive.
If I can have all that inframes, or maybe the sensors can
(08:42):
be mounted another way, a lapelpin.
I have no idea.
If I can wear sensors in thatway and have them work with my
phone and AI and to give me, youknow, and it's connected to the
web.
Tell me about restaurants onthis street.
Tell me about the history ofthis cathedral that I'm looking
at.
Oh, I've taken a picture of aforeign language menu.
(09:02):
Please translate it for me.
So all of that can be donewithout displays.
So I am losing my religion ondisplays.
We've been working on it for 10years now.
Google's coming out with one andMeta's adding it, doing a
version of Ray-Bans with it.
And so I, you know, myexperience with Vision Pro is,
nobody at Apple could tell mewhat the applications were other
(09:24):
than what the device did.
Whoa! 3D photography! So theyhad no idea what it was
Nathan C Bowser (09:29):
for.
Productivity!
Charlie Fink (09:31):
It was just a disaster on every level.
Nathan C Bowser (09:33):
The broad spatial computing community
spent decades just obsessedabout degrees and nits and, how
much of a screen, how bright ofa screen, how full-color of a
screen.
And what you're pointing at isthat when you're talking the
only thing that I could think ofthat requires a screen in many
(09:55):
of those instances, is that wehave been trained that
technology is so dumb that smartassistants are not very smart.
We want a screen so that we cansee the interface, so that we
can see with our own eyes andtrust that we know what's going
on.
And that to me is like a userexperience problem.
(10:17):
One of the major differentiatorbetween all of the AR glasses
that are out there and the onething that Apple did to
contribute to the conversationreally was show elegant,
considered user experiences thathelp people get into the
technology in a blink so thatthey can start to ask those next
questions and be like, useful.
(10:39):
And you know, the laggards aresome of the more sort of cutting
edge.
Like you, you put'em on, youdon't know how they work.
You have to fumble your waythrough.
Just love this idea that like ascreen might just be like a
pacifier, you know?
That's holding us back to thisnext layer.
It seems like one of those areaswhere the worry about future
(11:01):
malfeasance lost out, theunintended consequences lost out
to the developers just reallyneed this tool to move this
forward.
Charlie Fink (11:08):
Yeah.
Nathan C Bowser (11:09):
Yeah.
Charlie Fink (11:09):
Let's see.
You know, I'm hoping when thosedevices come out, they'll come
with use cases.
Google I/O is going on thisweek.
They sent me a bunch of videosfinally of what the experience
is like inside of their headset,and it is the same prosaic stuff
we've already seen.
It's translation, it'sdirections.
I don't know about you.
I have a heads-up display in mycar that I never use.
(11:32):
I use the Google navigationsystem.
It's perfectly fine for thatpurpose.
I don't feel like glasses aregonna make that better.
Reading text messages in yourglasses happens to be the
stupidest thing I've ever heard.
People really wanna beinterrupted whenever?! In their
field of view?
Really?
And instead I'm gonna have to goup here to dismiss it.
(11:53):
I would never choose thatfeature.
Meanwhile, the features thatwould be really awesome, like
facial recognition are gonna betotally illegal.
Nathan C Bowser (12:01):
You got, how do you opt in on a street level?
Charlie Fink (12:03):
There may be specialized apps that allow you
to do that at a conference.
Nathan C Bowser (12:07):
AUR+A.
Yeah.
Charlie Fink (12:08):
Something like that.
And then they're useless afterthe conference.
But not enough people are gonnahave the glasses and people
aren't gonna walk around in aconference going like this.
But you know, at AWE many morepeople know me than I know.
And so people start talking tome, the assumption is that I
know them and in many cases theyare familiar to me because we've
all been doing this for 10years.
(12:29):
If I only could put in myglasses who they are, I would be
so happy! What would work forme?
Is the AI whispering in my ear.
"Oh, that's Nathan Bowser."People are gonna have crazy eyes
inside of their glasses.
You're gonna be talking tosomebody in their glasses and
they're gonna be like, lookingdown like this, and you'd be
like,"Hello!"
Nathan C Bowser (12:47):
Like when somebody is multitask, when
they're in a Zoom call on theVision Pro and they're
multitasking, they like turnaway and like they're physically
doing something else.
Charlie Fink (12:56):
Like being on a Zoom call and you see
Nathan C Bowser (12:57):
Yep.
Charlie Fink (12:58):
somebody there going like this, you know
totally what they're doing.
Nathan C Bowser (13:00):
Amazing! Charlie, I'm having so much fun.
You mentioned some things that,you were working on now using AI
in media.
I'm curious, looking forward howare these themes of like deep
tech and storytelling and AIevolving in your work now?
Charlie Fink (13:17):
I'm working on a series of stories about AI in
Hollywood and where I think allof this is gonna go in the next
five to 10 years.
And it has led me, investigatingit and studying it has led me to
working with my friend first onan animated series.
And, then hopefully it'll leadto a movie or a streaming
series.
But if you can keep the cost lowenough, you can make money on
(13:41):
shorts on social media, YouTube,and Reels.
But you have to keep your costreally low, like$500 a minute.
You know, that means that you'regonna have to, choose content
that is native to AI that takesadvantage of AI.
That's why it's an anime show.
Because we all expect a littlejankiness from anime.
And if you make some shortcutsor have to do a scene where all
(14:03):
you've got is mouth shapes foranimation it's okay'cause it's
gonna be on a teeny tiny littlescreen and everybody knows that
anime can be very low budget andchoppy.
We'll see.
It's a really interestingproject.
I love working with Rob Minkoff.
You know, the guy's a geniuscreatively, he's great.
He and I have been friends for35 years, so we have a very deep
(14:24):
basis of trust.
And I completely, a hundredpercent creatively defer to him.
He's so much better than I am.
I'm a guy with opinions, but sois every producer in Hollywood.
The problem with producers is Iwill make the most expeditious
choices in the interest of theproject, and he will make the
best artistic choices to servicethe project.
(14:46):
And so the tension is always,you have to balance those two
things.
But if you go with theproducer's way, you're just
gonna end up with a serviceable,low budget project.
And we don't want it to beserviceable, right?
We want it to be transcendent.
We want you to forget about howit was made and care about who's
in it and what's gonna happen tothem.
If you're worried about how itwas made, you've lost.
Nathan C Bowser (15:06):
Oh my gosh.
Such great creative advice! Ilove this idea of a transcendent
experience.
It leads me to my next questionwhere I talk about goals, right?
The show is The Glow Up, whichis a notable rebirth or a
transformation.
I'm curious, as somebody who hashad many different lives and
careers, in this tech andcommunication space, do you have
(15:28):
goals for the next six monthsthat you're working on?
Charlie Fink (15:31):
It would be great to see the thinking I've been
doing about AI and Hollywoodbecome a book.
No one really reads books, butit's the fact of the book that
matters and it hopefully couldreignite the speaking business I
enjoyed after"The Metaverse" waspublished.
'Cause that was a really goodfour year run.
I'd like to have a little bitmore of that because you know,
(15:51):
you make money flying to Koreaand talking to Samsung or to
Dubai and talking to governmentpeople.
That was the kind of consultingand speaking I was doing.
It was awesome! It paid well andit hurt that business ended for
me.
Fortunately I do have a smallconsulting business, helping
tech companies tell theirstories and sometimes do
strategic planning.
And oftentimes I do it for freebecause I just, I love people.
(16:15):
I love the people in thiscommunity.
It gives me great pleasure andsatisfaction when I see people
who are succeeding.
Because I also see many peoplewho disappear and you know, I
know they were smart people withgreat vision.
But you know, in this cruelworld, so many things have to
align with timing and everythingelse that it's just inevitable
(16:37):
that most ideas fail.
And I've had way more ideas failthan succeed throughout my
career.
In the next six months I'mhoping we can get through this
social media series with Rob,and get it out there and see
people's reactions and hopefullymake enough money so that we can
keep going and use that data tomake it more and more popular.
We have a big social media/moviestar, who we've signed up, and
(17:02):
we'll make a big announcementabout these things probably in
the next four or five weeks.
You have to get all the dealsclosed in a Hollywood way, and
believe it or not, that takeslonger than it's gonna take to
produce the actual content.
So that's why people are like,Hollywood's gonna disappear.
I'm like no! You know, you'regonna need celebrities more than
ever because in a sea ofundifferentiated AI content,
it's hard to know what is a realwork and what is just synthetic
(17:27):
slop.
That'll make your social mediafeed more entertaining and
visual.
But it also will clutter thingsup with special effects you know
we see with Studio Ghibli orpeople folding themselves up
using the Pika app and you know,these things are cute but it
blocks content of deepermeaning.
Having a celebrity is gonna makea big difference.
(17:47):
Also, in general when you'reproducing cinematic AI you have
human fingerprints all over itthat have to be documented,
right?
So that you can protect thework.
We're doing visual developmentoffline.
We're hiring artists to figureout the look and feel of the
film because we want to be ableto protect it, and it's
difficult, it's not impossible,but it's difficult to protect AI
(18:09):
when you don't document what thehumans have done.
That's the state of the artright now.
And also more and more ethicalmodels are hitting the market
and those models are gonna getbetter and better.
So that legal concern probablywill be greatly diminished in
the next year or two.
And you know, I still write thecolumn and do the podcast every
week.
I teach every semester.
So all those things dovetailtogether.
(18:31):
To teach I would have tobasically write the column
anyway and to do the podcast thefirst 15 minutes of the podcast
is news and opinion, which wecouldn't do if I hadn't written
the column the day before.
'Cause that's the script for thepodcast.
And then, you the format is likea Daily Show thing.
So we do the kind of newsroundup/opinion, the three of us
(18:51):
together and then we bring inwhoever the guest is for a 30,
40 minute interview.
And we've been getting greatguests.
We've done 245 shows, I thinkwe've had about 210 different
guests.
So there's some repeaters inthere.
But it's funny, I was justlooking at our stats'cause we're
getting like 50,000 downloads amonth.
(19:12):
So I'm better known at thispoint for the podcast than my
writing on Forbes.
When people come up to me at AWEthey're talking about the
podcast.
When I met people at SXSW andthey're like,"Oh, you're Charlie
Fink! Can you say'Good morningeverybody?'" It's like the
signature line of the podcast.
"Good morning everybody!" AndI've done it 245 times.
(19:33):
And here's advice for yourpodcast.
Longevity really counts withpodcasts.
The first year we were gettinglike 20 people listen to the
podcast.
Right now we see numbers like,oh shit! 35,000 people listen to
that podcast?! You know, it'scrazy! But I think that also is
because we changed the name ofthe podcast from"This Week in
XR" a year ago to"The AI/XRPodcast" And that has made a big
(19:57):
significant difference.
And I do think by the way, theconversation about XR, which is
no longer new, is about AI.
Nathan C Bowser (20:04):
Yeah, but I think it's partly due to my
decade in the space and justfamiliarity having built a
number of prototypes and appsthat I've started to see,
immersive technology, spatialcomputing, more as a content
channel and differentiator,rather than a'market to build
in." I've always talked about,you know, is it MR or VR?
(20:27):
It's just the kind of screenyou're using and now there's a
'goggle-less' category for VRtoo.
Charlie Fink (20:31):
There's Lightfield Labs Labs, which is gonna, you
know, making beings made oflight that are photorealistic.
Chairs that look like you cansit in them, that come out of
the floor.
You know, that are projected outof the bending light against
these panels I guess they'redoing a giant stadium
installation where thescoreboard is gonna float over
the fricking field!
Nathan C Bowser (20:51):
That is the future!
Charlie Fink (20:52):
Bonkers! We ain't seen nothing yet! The next 10
years should bring as manysurprises as the last ten has.
Nathan C Bowser (20:58):
Oh goodness! Charlie Fink you have been so
generous with your time and yourinsights on this, long and
storied career.
I'm really taken by this sort ofpresence that you have as you've
moved through these differenteras of communications
technology and this flexibilitythat you've had to you know,
(21:21):
move into these different rolesand opportunities, and even like
identities as, technology andopportunities have changed.
Hands down you win the award forthe most, like name drops and
just jaw dropping anecdotes.
And also, as somebody who is aadvocate for creators, really,
(21:44):
you know, wants to see thedesigners, the UXers, the
artists, the content makers,have a part, a voice, a place
in, you know, the development ofthis technology, to hear
somebody come from yourbackground, scrape their way
into that opportunity and stillbe, engaged and passionate in it
so many decades later.
Such an inspiring conversation!Thank you so much for joining on
(22:07):
The Glow Up today.
Thanks for having me Nathan!This has been amazing! Can't
wait to hear more.
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